A Data Breach Today Could Cost You Millions

The risks of operating a business without secure document storage and collaboration workflows are increasing quickly. With more frequent data breaches occurring due to human error and malicious hackers, businesses small and large have no choice but to take note: It can cost big. Not only is brand reputation at stake, but your hard-earned dollars can quickly fly out the window to pay for penalties, legal fees, and new security measures to fill the security holes that were initially ignored.

Tangible and intangible costs
It’s possible to find the balance between what you should invest in security and what your actual risk is, but you have to analyze the numbers. If you read the news, you already know that the move to electronic records in many industries has increased the scale and scope of breaches. However, information on the real costs of a data breach has been relatively scarce, so let’s take a look at what’s available.

Rising costs
The average cost of a data breach has nearly doubled in the past year, according to the infographic below produced by UK’s Department of Business Innovation and Skills. The trend, while isolated to one country in this data set, is alarming for any business that relies on digital record-keeping. Each piece of sensitive data held by law firms, healthcare organizations, banks, and credit unions could add exponentially more risk in the form of potential cost should a breach occur.

UK Average Cost of a Data Breach (US Dollars):

Source: Department of Business Innovation and Skills

Learn more about this latest finding on the cost of data breaches by viewing the full infographic from Egress below or on their website: